ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A sweeping opposition win in elections Monday has diminished the U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf’s political standing as never before and many predict his days in power are numbered.
“I don’t see him surviving. It is just a question of time,” said political analyst Shafqat Mahmood.
The parties of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, came close to winning the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the president. According to nearly complete official returns, Bhutto’s party has 33.6 percent of National Assembly seats, and Sharif’s 25.9 percent. Musharraf’s ruling party mustered just 15 percent of the vote.
“The fact that parties opposed to Musharraf won the election was a clear denunciation of his actions and politics,” Mahmood said.
On Tuesday, Sharif reiterated his demand for Musharraf to step down — recalling the president’s statement last year that he would resign if he ever lost the support of the people.
The weight of public animosity derives from Musharraf’s tight alliance with the White House in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida — a battle few now see in Pakistan’s interests — the military’s dominance for the past eight years and Musharraf’s maneuvering to remain in power, which culminated in the state of emergency he declared in November to stop the courts from overturning his re-election as president.
Many Pakistanis are alarmed at rising Islamic militancy, weary of prolonged military rule and struggling with high food prices.
“Instead of being the unifying figure he is pretending to be, Musharraf has led Pakistan into a dark alley,” said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political science professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. “The only way he can survive now is through manipulation, and the more he does that, the more public sentiment will go against him.”
Although Musharraf says he would like to work with the new government, he will struggle to mend fences from his executive excesses during a year of political turmoil.
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